Robotic Inspiration
by AndromedaAI
Summary: Ashlynn O'Neill cannot get inspiration to write a book what-so-ever. Living in a rinky-dink town doesn't help one bit. But when she learns of conspiracy theories having to do about alien robots, she knows she's going to get herself into trouble. Call it a feeling. One strange little device later, and she's thrown into an ancient civil war. She can only say one word: Whoops.
1. Procrastination

**Another story. I know, but I can't resist :3**

**So the scoop for this story: It's a "restart" of the G1 show, with elements from the IDW comics in order to fill in holes where I see fit. Spike and Sparkplug are secondary characters, and will not meet the Autobots - well they won't be the _first._ Hunter O'Nion and Mechatopia are mentioned in this chapter, but only because this is how I get the main character interested in giant extraterrestrial robots. So don't go "ew" at it. They'll never get mentioned again [when she thinks back, they might].**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Transformers, but I wish I did. Because then, Mirage would appear more in Transformers stuff.**

**Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

1** - Procrastination** - 1

People's lives are like stories. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. No plot.

My story just happened to be _boring_.

I was what city people called a 'hick'; I lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I had a trucker for a father, and a mother who worked as a hospital secretary for eight of the twelve hours I was awake every day. I dreamed of being a writer, but was always suffering from writers block. I had just graduated from school at the tender age of seventeen, and I was stuck at home with hardly anything to do. Nobody talked to me, since the town was so small and the total teenaged population thought I was 'disinteresting'.

That's one thing that I wanted: I wanted to be interesting. But if I managed to write a book, and got it published, people would flock to me and want to be my friend…a fake friend. I would be interesting only because I had written something that many would read…

My life looped in an endless circle, just because of that. To write or not to write?

I was frustrated because of the procrastination funk I found myself in. Mom often told me, when she was home and I brought the subject up, that it was because of how dry and stale my life was. I had to get up off my butt and actually _do_ something.

But what was I to do? I would often stop and think about it, since I was tired of being trapped inside the confines of my own home because I couldn't figure out where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I would list off what there was available to do, but when I thought about it, I couldn't motivate myself to do any of it. I couldn't gather any motivation from those activities anyway.

There was the arcade—but most of the games were not to my interest, and I didn't want to waste any of my quarters or loonies. The library—well, I had read all the books I was interested in there. The mall didn't offer anything, and I was hardly ever in the mood to go swimming at the pool. The jocks from the local high school liked to belittle the 'nobodies', like me, there.

Every time I thought about what I could do in this rinky-dink town, I always came to the conclusion that there was nothing for me to do. It was really depressing.

The morning of Day 1, the first day I was recording mentally so that I'd be able to go over it later, started the same way it had always started since I graduated. I would get up, take a shower, eat breakfast, and then go back to my bathroom and brush my teeth. Then I would sit down at my desk with a cold glass of water and boot up my laptop. I'd open up a Microsoft Word document, pick my preferred font and letter size, and then sit there. I would stare at the screen of my laptop, desperately trying to think up some idea.

Some random amount of minutes later, I'd log on to the internet and try to search for ideas. When I got lucky, and found an idea, I'd only get a chapter in before I hit writers block and be forced to move on to something different. Such was my life.

It was kind of amazing how I hadn't gone stark-raving mad yet.

Day 1 went a little differently after I opened my Microsoft Word document that morning. When I went in search of inspiration. I was in the mood for some sci-fi, with some robot drones thrown in, so I went to Google and typed in "mysterious robots" and hit enter.

The internet connection to my laptop was kind of slow, so I had to wait a minute or two before some results came up. I surfed through Wikipedia, and even the Discovery Channel's website, before I came across a website called ' '. With a raised brow, I cautiously clicked on the link, not knowing quite what the link would lead me to. At least my computer protection software said 'Norton: OK' beside the link. That made me feel a little bit better.

Once the page was fully uploaded, I blinked at its description on the main page.

"_Welcome to Mechatopia dot com! The worldwide web's largest website for conspiracy theories and sightings of the robotic extraterrestrial kind!"_

I blinked again.

"What kind of crap is this?" I asked myself, not having to worry about my parents overhearing since they were both at work.

I wasn't much of an alien believer—I didn't believe aliens existed because it sounded so preposterous. If there was such a thing as aliens, then we would have already been contact with them, and would have for a very long period of time. And I didn't believe that the government was hiding any aliens from us either. I was more of a 'seeing is believing' type of girl.

So this 'site turned off my interest instantly, and soured any ideas I might have thought up for a possible story.

But as I read the links listed on the left-hand side ('Sightings', 'FAQ', 'Conspiracy Theories', 'Robotic Genders?', 'Contact Us'), I felt myself beginning to get curious. I tried to fight it, since I tended to shy away from conspiracy theories having to do with aliens and leaned more towards theories having to do with the American Government (like the show, _Decoded_, or _America's Book of Secrets_), since some of the Government conspiracies _could_ be true.

I couldn't look away. So I read, and read, and _read_… Wasting all of my writing time that I had set aside for that day. I would have to note later that Day 1 had been as fruitless in my writing attempts as all the days before had been.

Just as my writing hour came to an end, I was reading through the 'Sightings' page. I had clicked on the 'Canada' link, and it had taken me straight to the tiny section of mech sightings. It was tiny probably because of how _not_ populated my home country could be in some areas.

There were a total of four sightings in Canada, period. One of them was in the northern parts of Manitoba, but the last three were all in central Alberta. And out of those three, one sighting was just outside of Edmonton, and the last two were just outside…Dansworth…_the town I lived in_.

For a third time, I blinked. "This has to be some sort of fluke…" why did I even click on Mechatopia's link? The logical half of my brain decided to play with the facts, and came up with this: Canada had a smaller population, but was almost the same size as the US of A. I clicked on the discussion page for this set of sightings and saw a lot of Americans asking 'why Canada?' So my brain took that and wove it into my theory, and choked out this: Because of how much land separated cities and towns from one another, Canada would make an excellent hiding spot for giant robotic aliens, which this 'site was dedicated to. They could hide anywhere, and nobody would know about them until it was too late.

So I signed up for the website as a member, making my username 'Ash O'Neill', and putting my location as 'Dansworth, Alberta, Canada'. I wrote my theory down on the discussions page, under the 'Why Canada?' section.

Instantly, there was a reply.

**You may be right. – Hunter O'Nion**

**Worthy hypothesis. I will PM you. – Mr. Charles**

I blinked for the fourth time. I started in surprise when my laptop beeped, signalling that I had received an email, or a PM. I looked at the top of the page, and a little icon, a little envelop with a little red flag sticking up out of it, showed that I had a PM. Slowly, I slid the mouse up to the icon and clicked on it, knowing that I was going to be talking to someone over the internet, and that that was a big no-no in my home. But I couldn't be rude; I had already opened my mouth (so to speak).

I selected the lone PM, and began to read it.

_Hello, Ash O'Neill_

_From how you wrote out your theory, it seems you are quite an intelligent thinker. If you are interested, I have something you might like to see. It has something to do with the robots. PM me if you are interested, and if so, meet me at Dansworth's mall – I'll tell you what time._

_Mr. Charles._

It felt like an invisible hand had reached into my chest and had wrapped its icy fingers around my heart. I felt dread at this response, but also curiosity.

What was I to do? Should I ignore it?

After a small inner battle, I slowly clicked on the 'reply' button. And then I began to write.

_Dear Mr. Charles_

_I like to think, and think a lot. I'm the kind of person that is quite skeptical about the belief and the "supposed" sightings of these robots. Frankly, I came here because I was looking for ideas for a story, not because I was a believer of aliens. But now I'm interested. I would like to see what you have to show me._

I shouldn't have done this.

* * *

The next day, I pulled up on my moss-green Honda Foreman quad and parked it in a parking spot in front of the mall.

That was one thing I was glad for in this town. Because so many rednecks and farmers lived in and around Dansworth, the town police, whose numbers were small, had simply given up on the 'don't drive your quad on concrete' rule. The rednecks and the farmers acted like they didn't care about safety, so they had simply given up trying to stop them from driving their all-terrain-vehicles into town. At least they didn't drive the ATV's too fast.

And why I liked that rule? It was because my mother and father had yet to get me a car, even though I had a licence since I was fifteen. So the only vehicles I had to take were my eighteen-speed and my quad. My quad was faster.

I left my quad running and my pink and white ATV helmet on as I waited for this "Mr. Charles" to come forth. My stomach was performing cartwheels inside my abdomen as my conscience continued to berate me for saying that I was interested in what Mr. Charles wanted to show me. I _was not_ an alien hunter.

What was I even doing? Had my mind completely shut itself down? Was I just running on pure, unadulterated _curiosity_? Yes, yes I was.

And that was bad. I did not like to work on mere curiosity. Curiosity tended to get me into tight spaces, and I had gotten into enough trouble because of it. And my ADD didn't make it easy to keep my nose out of things, either. So I had dug myself a hole again, and I was probably going to pay for it as well. Add that to that time I was caught trespass—

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone approaching me at a casual pace. I turned my head and looked through my shades, studying him as he came my way. He was tall, but was around as tall as my dad. He was definantly male, flat chest, broad shoulders. The suspicious-looking black trench-coat he was wearing thinly hid fine-toned muscles, and he wore sunglasses and a hat that hid his eye-colour and hair-colour. This man was keeping his identity quite a secret, and I did not like it.

I watched him carefully as he came to a stop in front of me. "Ash O'Neill?" he asked.

I nodded once. "That's me," I confirmed.

"Good," the man said. "I am Mr. Charles, if you haven't already guessed it." He crossed his arms and cleared his throat. "When I saw your username, I never suspected you'd be a girl. 'Ash' _is_ a boy's name."

"Yes, but it can be a unisex nickname," I pointed out. "Now, what was it that you wanted to show me?"

I guess I was running on logic—a strange strain of logic—when I said I would meet up with Mr. Charles, and not just on curiosity. I guess my writer's instincts thought 'oh, what better inspiration than something you can touch and feel?'

"Ah, yes," the man smiled. He reached into one of the many pockets in his trench-coat and pulled out s package small enough to fit it in the palm of his hand. He held it out to me, and I stared at it, trying to assess if it was some sort of trap. But I reached out and gingerly picked it up with the thumb and index finger of my right hand.

My story has always been boring, but as I picked up the package, I had a feeling that my life was about to get a bit more interesting.

After all, I was an inner techie—there might be something in this package that I might like, _even if_ it had something to do with aliens.

I thanked the man and rode my quad back to my house, where I sat down at my desk, closed down my laptop, and slid it off to the side. Once I had ample desk space, I took the package out of my backpack and set it down on my desk. I rested my elbows on the desktop and then rested my chin on my hands as I examined the package.

Whatever "Mr. Charles" had given me, it had been packaged in a small package that visually hid its true weight. My palms itched as my curious side urged me to open the package. My logical side urged me to just chuck it out the door. My curious side won out, and my logical side was shoved to the back of my mind. I gently turned the package over, and began to tear the paper away from the seams near the tape.

The packing paper fell away, and I carefully cut open the box that was unveiled. I used my scissors like a knife, and cut the packing tape that kept me from opening the cardboard container. Once the tape was cut, I pulled back the flaps of the box and looked in. What I pulled out…would it change my way of life?

* * *

"Megatron: probe has been activated," the voice of the monotone mech said from where he was standing behind his leader.

"Excellent," the large grey mech said. "Who opened the package, Soundwave?"

Soundwave hesitated for a few seconds before answering, taking time to sift through information. "Fleshling: femme. Human: responded to private message on the website. Package: picked up two joors ago."

Megatron smiled, but said nothing. Instead, he typed a command in on the computer console in front of him. On the screen, footage from a surveillance camera belonging to a convenience store popped up. The leader of the Decepticons took control of the motor functions of the primitive device and moved it from side to side. He stopped the device when he received footage of a housing unit across the street from the store.

"Is this the exact location of the probe?" the gun-former asked.

"Location: exact," Soundwave confirmed.

"Excellent," Megatron said again.

He commanded the camera to zoom in, and it did, giving him a closer look of the house. He focused on one of the many windows, and saw that there was movement in that room. The two mechs waited to see if the femme would reveal herself. It was a long wait, but the girl eventually stepped in front of the window. She was cuddling an organic cybercat in her arms and was pacing back and forth.

"Was Skywarp's holomatter avatar successful in gleaning any information from her?" he asked.

"Negative," Soundwave replied. "Femme: suspicious. Fight or flight: engaged and on standby."

Megatron tapped his chin in thought. "Of course. Humans are naturally suspicious creatures, femmes more so. We will need her to be brought in for a…_talk_."

* * *

**Evil, evil Decepticons. Gotta hate them, gotta love them. Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do? Heh.**


	2. I Didn't Sign Up For This

**1: I'm sorry for taking so long to update. School + helping set up our farm + Dad randomly unplugging the generator + having to go a Laundromat or a friend's house to do laundry + Mirage feeding me random plot bunnies, have been keeping me away. Like, seriously, Mirage wanted me to write a story where a girl returning home from college for the weekend gets sucked through a spacebridge and back to when the war for Cybertron was beginning (in the G1 'verse). And I **_**wanted**_** to write it. Back burner, Mirage, back burner.**

**2: It's so frustrating when I write 'optic' instead of 'eye' in this story. I guess it's because I'm so used to writing from the Autobots'/Decepticons', or a fangirl's or human-turned-Cybertronian's point-of-view. Ugh.**

**3: I couldn't stop writing this. Seriously, I couldn't. Something in me **_**made me**_** keep writing the Decepticon-Ashlynn/battle scene. And I loved it. High-five to Inspiration!**

**4: Thumbs-down for procrastination! I ran out of names to call the 'Bots at the end of the chapter since Ashlynn doesn't know their names yet. XD**

* * *

2 – **I Didn't Sign Up For This** – 2

Ever since they woke up from their (many) millennia long stasis, they had wondered where the Decepticons had run off to. They were gone before they were fully rebooted, and that worried them. The one that worried the most was Optimus Prime, because they had found themselves on a new world, and the Decepticons were out there somewhere. They could still be on-world, or they could have exploited materials and things from the planet, and then gone off world…

There were numerous possibilities, and none of them were good. The Decepticons could be anywhere, and they weren't quite sure how they were going to be able to stop them if Teletraan's sensors picked them up. That was why the second orbital-cycle of the second megacycle they had been online found Optimus Prime staring intently, half in thought, at Teletraan-1's main computer screen. He wanted to be there when the Decepticon's signals popped up on their scanners.

Mirage walked up behind the leader of the Autobots and watched him intently with his amber-coloured optics. The former noble was soon joined by the SiC of the Autobot army, Prowl. "He keeps staring," the blue and white mech whispered to the black and white mech. "What if…the Decepticons are not on this planet anymore?"

"We will find out one way or another," Prowl remarked before striding over to stand next to their leader. The height difference between the two caused the Praxian to crane his neck back in order to see optic-to-optic with Optimus. "What actions are we going to have to take to find out if the Decepticons are still on-world, Prime?"

There was a short pause. "We…might just have to up our patrols, Prowl," he turned his head slightly down towards the doorwinged Autobot. "Send Mirage and Hound out on patrol—have them circle the perimeter of the nearby town."

Prowl saluted. "Yes sir."

* * *

I set the device down and groaned. Rubbing my face with both of my hands, I realized that the device was not going to give me any form of inspiration whatsoever, any time soon.

This had been a mistake, I realized. I went and did something behind my parents' back for what turned out to be for no good reason, and now I felt crummy inside. And what if Mr. Charles wanted this…thing…back? How was I going to get it back to him? What if it was something dangerous, something I shouldn't even have? The police could be out looking for it even as I thought about it. This made me feel terrified.

"I have to get out of here," I whispered to myself. I stroked my cat's fur carefully for a couple seconds before I stuck the device into my pocket, and flopped down on my bed. At the moment, it was nine-something in the evening, and I was going to allow myself to sleep until around six in the morning. I was just barely able to set my alarm before I dropped off to sleep.

Day 2 dawned and I was awoken by the beeping of my alarm. I rose from my bed with a yawn, and went and washed myself up. I then grabbed my backpack and grabbed a quick breakfast from the kitchen before I headed out the door. I munched on my cream cheese-slathered bagel as I slid my ATV helmet on. I slipped my pink-framed aviator glasses on over my eyes, before I tilted my helmet back and finished my breakfast and hopped onto my ATV.

I started the quad and revved its engine before roaring out of the backyard. I just needed to spend some time away from civilization, just in case someone was out to get the device I had gotten from Mr. Charles.

And…I was feeling something I hadn't expected. Fear.

Paranoia.

Was there someone after me?

I rode out into the countryside, enjoying the feeling of the wind pushing against me. I drove over bumps, and caught some air while I drove through a forest, and out onto a dirt road that stretched out onto fields that stretched past the horizon. I came to a stop on the top of a hill and turned my quad off. I took a deep breath and gazed over the landscape around me. I continued to breathe in and out slowly and deeply in order to calm myself. I couldn't allow myself to panic, because if I got into any real danger, I'd need my head in order to work myself out of it.

Slowly, I started to drive again, trying to ease the tension from my body. I loved to quad, but this situation was just ruining it for me.

I came to a stop again when lunch rolled around, and I ate a simple granola bar. I was going to conserve food, because I had no idea how long I was going to be out here today.

As I ate, I thought about possible plot elements for future stories that could come from this experience. There could be a girl who was running away from a crime lord and was forced to flee into the wilderness… That would be a good story, if I could get anymore inspiration for it later on. _That's my problem. I don't have inspiration and I quickly lose interest in my ideas because I don't have anything to keep my inspiration going,_ I thought.

And it made me _very_ frustrated.

Why. Could. I. Not. Write? What was keeping me from writing?

My frustration over being unable to write was violently interrupted when three jets appeared in the sky ahead of me. They raced in my direction, and one of them, a blue and white one, angled its nose down and gathered speed as it flew down. Then it flattened out, and raced over me. My heart leapt to my throat with how close it had been—it had to have been at least or only ten feet above me.

But then an ear-shattering sound blast, akin to a clap of thunder, split the air around me. I heard it for a second before I suddenly couldn't hear anything at all. Pain radiated through my head as my eardrums were severely numbed. I felt myself screaming from the pain, the air from my lungs running over my stretched vocal cords, and I could feel my innards still vibrating from the sound.

And that's when I noticed that I was stretched over the handlebars of my quad. The sound must have knocked me over.

Quickly, I pushed myself back into a sitting position, and took a deep breath. I still couldn't hear anything, and that instilled more fear in me than anything else when it was coupled with the fact that that plane had purposefully set off a sonic boom right on top of me.

I felt my quad still running underneath me, so I put it back into first gear and quickly accelerated forward, away from the jets which were now behind me. As I continued to accelerate, climbing up through the gears rapidly, I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the jets and saw that they were circling around, coming back towards me. I looked ahead and scanned ahead of me to see if there was any cover.

Another scream left me as one of the jets, the black and purple one, appeared in the sky ahead of me in a flash of purple light. How could it do_ that_?! I yanked back on the brakes on both handlebars (one was broken so it didn't help), and the back wheels of my quad locked up. I skidded forward as the jet slowed and then…and then…

The jet broke into different pieces as the aft of the aircraft split in two to form legs, the thrusters appearing on the heels of the feet. A torso formed, seemingly growing from the legs as the nose and cotpit folded down over the "chest". The wings of the jet clipped themselves to the back of the torso as a head appeared. Two glowing red eyes peered down at me, a smirk on its face.

I saw the transformation in slow motion, able to take in everything it did in all but a few seconds before time resumed and the "jet" landed with an earth-quaking shake. I shrunk down in fear as it leered down at me.

* * *

Skywarp sneered down at the little human femme, relishing the fact that her posture screamed that she was terrified, though her helmet and 'visor' concealed her face and her emotions. He watched as she began to fiddle with the controls of her little vehicle, before she managed to get it to start driving in reverse. She got it about ten feet before Starscream landed and she bumped into his pede. The yelp that came from her when she experienced the sudden stop was quite cute.

The girl looked up at Starscream as his trine leader grinned down at the little meat sack. "You shouldn't have left your home, little girl," he sneered before making a grab at her. But by then, she had set her vehicle into drive, and she was racing forward. Starscream missed her by mere inches.

Skywarp dove at her, but she swerved and managed to escape from between his digits. "You can run, but you can't hide, _human_," the black and purple seeker announced before he warped in front of her. She shrieked again and whirled her vehicle around, spraying dirt up as she did so. Skywarp rubbed his audios jokingly. "Gee, Starscream, she has a shriek that rivals _yours_," he chuckled.

The tricoloured seeker glared at his trine-mate. "Shut up, Skywarp."

* * *

I raced away from the black a purple jet-robot, while keeping the red, white, and blue one in my peripheral vision. My chest hurt with how hard my heart was pumping in my fear. What was I going to do, what was I going to do? Was I going to die? Were they going to capture me and take me prisoner? I could hear them talking amongst each other, so I knew they were more than robots—unless the people who had created them sent verbal transmissions between them to make it look more realistic.

But I had a feeling that that wasn't the case.

Suddenly, a pair of giant, robotic, blue legs stepped out in front of me, and I was forced to screech to a halt with a scream flying from my lips. I was thankful I could hear my screams now, though, they still sounded a bit muffled. My ears were probably damaged. If I got out of this, I'd have to get a doctor to look at them. But I might not get out of this—I might die!

I looked up and saw that the legs belonged to a blue and white robot. He must have come from the jet that caused the sonic boom.

Before I could say anything, the blue and white robot reached down and plucked me up with a black armored hand. I could only whimper as I was hoisted up into the air. He held me up by the back of my shirt, and dangled me in front of his face. I hung close enough to his face that I could see the intricateness of the circuitry that made up his eyes through their glow. But I was too scared to be fascinated by them.

"This is the human femme we need?" he asked, his voice deep, vaguely reminding me of thunder.

He probably could sense that I was terrified of him. He was probably mentally gloating inside his big head about how superior he was to me. I could guess that, because that was how his friends were acting, even though he wore a look of indifference, as if he didn't care that he was holding me.

"She doesn't look that important," he said. Yeah, rub it in. Even the robot thought I wasn't even worth their time. Now I had teenagers _and _giant robots that would rather ignore me.

"But it is, Thundercracker," the tricoloured jet said. Great, now I was an 'it'. "The human's creator works with fuel that can be converted into Energon. If we can get her to spill the location of the fuel…" he left the end of his explanation hanging.

The one holding me looked me in the eye as his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and a look of doubt crossed his face. He probably thought I wasn't worth it, and it was true! Dad never told me where he went to get the stuff that he had to haul to and from the different oilrigs. These three would kill me when they found out that I didn't have the information they wanted. Tears sprung to my eyes when I thought about it.

'Thundercracker' placed me in his other hand, and I tried to breathe as my chest stayed constricted in my fear. Either I was going to die by giant evil robot, or I was going to die from the lack of oxygen.

"Come, our leader wishes to speak to you," the tricoloured jet announced, looking right at me.

_Can't really do anything else at the moment,_ the sarcastic thought bubbled up before I could stop it, even though my fear made it feel like I was going to die from cardiac arrest. I didn't say it verbally, thank goodness.

The leader of the trio, the one that announced that we were leaving, plucked me from Thundercracker's grasp. I screamed again, my throat beginning to hurt because of how many times I had let out the vocal blasts.

"Aww… Screamer, why do you get to carry the squishy?" the black and purple jet whined. Yes, _whined_.

'Screamer' glared at him. "Shut up, Skywarp!" With that, he turned away from the two and said, "Decepticon Seekers! Transform and—!"

"Not today, Starscream!" a new voice proclaimed. From the corner of my eye, I managed to catch a glimpse of what looked to be an army green Jeep before it slammed into Screamer's—or Starscream's—heels.

He yelped loudly, almost deafening me again by how loud his shriek was, before he pitched backwards, his feet swinging up to be level with his face before he fell to earth. I was flung away, out of the jet's grip, and I screamed as loudly as I could.

I spun through the air, flailing wildly, before I was caught by one of Thundercracker's large black hands. My screaming stopped when the impact knocked the air out of me. But my tears returned.

Thundercracker's face suddenly jerked to the side, as if someone had come and punched him. This caused him to drop me as he stumbled back. Another shriek left my raw throat as I plummeted to the ground, but I was caught again before I was rapidly carried away from the 'Seekers'. I blinked a few times before I realized that I was being carried away by nothing, that I was sitting on nothing. "W-what?" I stuttered.

"Do not worry," a disembodied voice assured me from just above and behind me. I twisted to look up in the general direction the voice had come from in time to see my rescuer materialize out of thin air.

My jaw dropped when I found myself looking up into the face of another robot. But this robot was different. His face was light grey in colour, and his 'helmet', if you could call it that, was domed and royal blue in colour. He had some kind of crest sticking out of his forehead, and he wore what looked to be a bandit's mask over his nose and around his orange/yellow eyes. The vents that sat on both sides of his face were white.

I gaped, my mouth opening and closing soundlessly. A small part of me wondered how badly I was imitating a dying fish at that moment. "Uhh…?"

"Hang on," the robot said before he set me down on the ground. "I must go assist my friend," he told me simply before he turned and dashed back into the battle. I watched as he went, not able to move until I remembered my quad. I looked over in its direction and gasped when I saw it in the middle of the fight. I winced when the robot that looked like he might have been the Jeep nearly landed on my quad, which was the same shade of green as he was.

I didn't know what to do. I was afraid that more robots might be out there, waiting for me to run from the fight and then grab me, and I was afraid that at any moment, a robot might come flying in my direction and squash me. I wished I had my quad with me, because I'd be able to make a hasty retreat. My quad could go as fast as fifty kilometers an hour if I pushed it on gear six.

The fight continued, and I watched as the robot that caught me and brought me away from the fight helped draw the trio away from me, and my quad. He would suddenly disappear, then appear behind the farthest jet and clock him on the back of the head. When the jet turned and saw him, he would disappear, and then reappear further away, causing the jet to go after him and engage him.

Soon, they were far enough away from my quad that I felt I could take the risk and go after it. I was at least a hundred meters from it, but I felt that I could make it. I dashed across the distance, going as fast as I could while trying to ignore the pain I was feeling from the bumps and bruises I had received from being thrown around. It took a couple of minutes, but I managed to reach the ATV, and breathed a sigh of relief while also trying to catch my breath. Only the tail-end was slightly dented from when I had backed up into the tricoloured jet's foot.

I jumped on and reached for the key to start the vehicle when I remembered that I had left it on. It was still in gear, so I quickly pressed the acceleration thumb-lever on the right handle-grip and raced away from the battle, having to go down a few gears and slowly build up speed as I did so.

There! I was home free! I was going to live! I wasn't going to die—!

In a bright flash of white-red light, another robot appeared, like he had beamed down like someone from _Star Trek_. He was slightly shorter than the robot that saved me, had a black helmet with two squarish-spikes sticking out of it like cat-ears, and what looked to be a one-lensed pair of blue glowing shades covering up his eyes. His—armor?—was mostly white, save for the blue and red stripes traveling down his front, and a weird, boxy, robotic face painted in red on his chest.

Wryly, I thought about how my tires must have been sanded away because of how many times I had to stop suddenly, when I had to yank on the brakes again. I couldn't stop fast enough before I crashed into one of his legs though. An "oof" escaped me as I heard him grunt. Great, now the bull-bar-esque armor on the front of my quad was dented. Worse yet, I probably dented the robot's armor too.

Jacking my head back quickly enough to make my brain rattle a bit inside my skull, I looked up in time to see the robot smile down at me with humor behind his expression. "Watch out, lil' lady!" he said before taking off to join the fight. I sat there in shock, not quite believing that I had just escaped being crushed.

Why hadn't that robot killed me?

Maybe he was friends with the robot that saved me?

I turned and watched as the new robot dove into the fray. It was now three against three. Was it bad that the jet robots, the ones that wanted to "take me to their leader", were all bigger than the ones fighting them?

The green Jeep suddenly cried out as he was picked up and thrown in my direction. He landed several meters from me, and slid a few more before coming to a stop. He tilted his head back and looked at me upside down with a pair of blue eyes that matched the new robot's shades before he got to his feet and charged back into the fight. I didn't miss the slight trickle of glowing blue liquid that was coming from the corner of the robot's mouth.

After a while, it looked like the robots fighting the jets were getting pretty tired. Guilt pooled at the bottom of my stomach as I realized this entire battle was my fault. I had taken the strange device from Mr. Charles, and it must have attracted the jets somehow. Then these robots fighting the jets must of saw me in their grasp and attacked them (were they on humanity's side?), and they were getting trashed.

Then an idea popped in my head, and it made me grin in mischievousness, even as my heart felt like it shriveled up into nothingness. _Insult the leader of the jets_, I thought, _and distract them long enough to let the good—I hope—robots get the upper hand._

So I turned my quad around and charged towards the battle.

_You shouldn't be doing this!_ A voice in my head warned.

_Can't stop now, going too fast,_ I told it, gritting my teeth as my quad hit a bump and caught some air. I stood up a little in order not to slam back down on the seat. Once I had landed, I sat back down.

_You could die!_ It yelled.

_It's too late!_ I said.

_You will get __**squished**__!_ It screamed.

_I. Don't. Care!_ I argued. _I am a nobody. I'm just someone trying to be a _somebody_. I try to write to be recognised, but it hasn't worked and it __**never**__ will._ I hadn't convinced myself yet that maybe the reason why I couldn't write past the first chapter of a story was because I might not be cut out to be a writer. I just said it to make myself shut up. And with that, I just went faster.

I crossed the distance making my quad go as fast as it could. Its engine squealed with how hard I was pushing it. It was probably overheating. But I eventually made it to the edge of the battle and screeched to a stop.

My heart hammered in my chest, but I mustered up the courage to tip my helmet back and cup my hands around my mouth. "HEY, STARSCREAM!" I yelled at the top of my voice. All movement in the battle ceased as all eyes, all red, yellow/orange, and blue, turned to focus on me. The courage almost left me as I continued. "What's red, white, and blue, and is _UGLY_?!" I had never said anything like that to anyone's face, and I felt rotten inside. But it had to be done.

It took a few moments for Starscream to figure out what I had just said, that it was an insult directed at him. But that's all the battered (well, they had more damage than the jets) robots needed. The new robot socked Starscream in the face, the Jeep knocked Thundercracker's feet out from underneath him, and the robot that saved me shot at Skywarp. With the jets recovering, the-robot-with-the-shades whirled around and grabbed me, before taking off in a dead sprint, the Jeep and the orange-eyed robot right behind him. That didn't stop me from barking out a scream of surprise when I was suddenly tumbling into the front passenger seat of a Porsche Cayman that suddenly appeared in the robot-who-grabbed-me's place.

The air was knocked from me again when the Porsche abruptly accelerated and wrapped a seatbelt around me. I managed to twist around in the seat and look out the back window in time to see the green robot transform into the Jeep, and the orange-eyed robot transform down into what looked to be a Formula-1 race car.

"Hold on ta ya helmet, girl! This is gonna be one heck of a ride!" the car suddenly told me as I faced forward again.

My eyes were as round as dinner plates, though no one could really see it. "I didn't sign up for this!" I whispered.

"Now, somebot is gonna 'ave to 'xplain ta meh why Ah jus' had to waste precious Energon in an orbital jump so tha' Ah could save both _you_ an' a human!" the car said in a cross tone. He was obviously talking to the two behind us, but why he wanted an explanation while we were careening away from three bad guys (or whatever) was beyond me.

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**Well, there you go! That was fun. 4189 words dedicated to Ashlynn getting kidnapped by the Decepticons and then rescued by the Autobots. I don't think I've ever described anything so thoroughly. Oi.**

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**XDreamReaperX:** I'm glad you are. This story takes place in the G1 (_The Transformers_) continuity. I felt like rewriting the story, sticking a girl in Spike and Sparkplug's place, and sticking the story in modern times ("2013" on).

**Skyress98:** I updated! I hope you liked!

**Anon:** Glad you're intrigued! Hoped you enjoyed this chapter!


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